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Dawn over Ceres: NASA craft enters orbit around dwarf planet [i]NASA's Dawn probe has entered orbit... again. The first robotic probe to circle two different extraterrestrial worlds, Dawn slipped into orbit around Ceres, the smallest known dwarf planet and largest object in the asteroid belt, on Friday (March 6). "Confirmed: I am in orbit around Ceres," Dawn's managers announced using the mission's Twitter account. The spacecraft was 38,000 miles (61,000 kilometers) from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet's gravity at about 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT). Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California received a signal from the spacecraft at 8:36 a.m. EST (1336 GMT) that Dawn was healthy and thrusting with its solar electric ion engine, the indicator Dawn had entered orbit as planned.[/i]
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